1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a novel process for producing oxetanocin G. The present invention also relates to intermediates for synthesis of oxetanocin G.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Oxetanocin G is a compound which is expected to be useful as an antiviral agent, etc. and is disclosed in EP-A-0291917, together with a process for production thereof. This known process comprises either performing microbiological conversion with respect to the steps of starting from oxetanocin A to obtain oxetanocin X and then performing chemical synthesis up to 2-amino oxetanocin A, or applying chemical synthesis to all of the steps up to 2-amino-oxetanocin A and finally performing enzymatic conversion to obtain oxetanocin G.
However, this known process involves problems that in the case of the microbiological conversion, large amount of microbial cells are required, its reaction time is prolonged, etc. On the other hand, the overall chemical synthesis encounters a problem in yield so that such a process is not suited for industrial production.
Therefore, the present inventors have made extensive investigations on a process for producing oxetanocin G suitable for mass production and as a result, have accomplished the present invention.